Why can't I surf the sat channels while recording OTA?

1476 Views 11 Replies 11 Participants Last post by SaltiDawg, Dec 31, 2006

Richard Winfeld

Discussion Starter · Dec 30, 2006

I wanted to record the Sun Bowl in HD from my local CBS station off my OTA antenna. I watched most of it live, but I set up a manual timer 10 minutes before the game started because I knew I would be in and out of the room and I wanted to watch the whole game later. During a commercial break, I wanted to check on the other bowl game on ESPN-HD, so I briefly switched to that satellite channel. When I hit the "recall" button to return to channel 006-01, a box came up that said doing this would end the recording and asked me if I wanted to do that. I knew that would happen if I tried to switch to another OTA channel, but I was simply going back to the same OTA channel that I was recording! There's no way that should have caused an end to the recording, since the OTA tuner was already on that channel!

After desperately trying to figure out a way to return without turning off the recorder, I finally selected "Yes" to stop recording because I wanted to watch the game live, but it made me mad that the 622 wouldn't let me browse to another satellite channel and return to the same OTA channel I was recording. I was in single mode, if that makes any difference. I suppose I could have hit the record button to start another recording, but I didn't want to do this every time I went back to the ESPN channel and end up with a bunch of little segments of the game on my hard drive, so I decided to just watch the game live and forget about trying to record it. Now I'm sorry, because it was a great game with a last-minute comeback finish, so it made me doubly mad that (apparently) the only way I could record the game in one piece was to never change the channel.

Does anybody know why I couldn't go back to the OTA channel I was recording? Is this a bug in the receiver? Was there some way for me to get back to the channel without stopping the recorder?

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mdewitt

· #2 · Dec 30, 2006

The way that you would normally watch something that is already recording is to go into the list of your recordings and select it there. I think you get an option to either "view" or "start over" when it is recording. If you choose "view" it should let you start viewing the recording at the current "live tv" point, for lack of a better phrase.

This part is pure speculation so don't quote me:

Sounds like the DVR is just not smart enough to distinguish a change back to the same channel from a change to a different channel. Any change just stops the recording.

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LesRock1936

· #3 · Dec 30, 2006

Sounds like you might have had the receiver in dual mode. There are two tuners and dual mode dedicates one tuner to TV1 and one tuner to TV2. To record one channel and watch another on TV1, single mode has to be selected.

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Stewart Vernon

· #4 · Dec 30, 2006

Also worth mentioning is that sometimes Recall isn't going back to the most recently selected channel. I've only had this happen a couple of times, so I am not sure how to replicate it...

But I have been recording on a satellite channel (122 for example) and tuned to 22-1 OTA... then I select 11-1 OTA... then I went to 9424 satellite... then pressing recall, I expected to be returned to 11-1... but instead I was taken back to 22-1! Then recall again and it actually took me to the 122 that I had been recording.

My recording was fine (I watched the program later)... but it taught me to pay more attention to see if I can figure out how I was getting the weird function out of the recall button.

Not sure if this is what you were experiencing or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there as another possible thing.

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dave1234

· #5 · Dec 30, 2006

mdewitt said:
The way that you would normally watch something that is already recording is to go into the list of your recordings and select it there. I think you get an option to either "view" or "start over" when it is recording. If you choose "view" it should let you start viewing the recording at the current "live tv" point, for lack of a better phrase.

This part is pure speculation so don't quote me:

Sounds like the DVR is just not smart enough to distinguish a change back to the same channel from a change to a different channel. Any change just stops the recording.

This is exactly how you return to watching an OTA channel. I did that same thing today as the original poster and just when to the recordings menu and started from there. I got tired of the commercials and knew the game would be preempted so started recording and came back an hour and a half later. Fast forwarded thru the Ford stuff and half time and caught up to live TV about the beginning of the forth quarter.

There is only one OTA tuner so is doesn't matter if you use recorder 1 or 2, you can't watch one OTA program while recording another OTA program. But as noted you can watch the program you are recording by pushing the right buttons.

Forgot to add: GREAT WIN FOR THE BEAVERS

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langlin

· #6 · Dec 30, 2006

Richard Winfeld said:
I wanted to record the Sun Bowl in HD from my local CBS station off my OTA antenna. I watched most of it live, but I set up a manual timer 10 minutes before the game started because I knew I would be in and out of the room and I wanted to watch the whole game later. During a commercial break, I wanted to check on the other bowl game on ESPN-HD, so I briefly switched to that satellite channel. When I hit the "recall" button to return to channel 006-01, a box came up that said doing this would end the recording and asked me if I wanted to do that. I knew that would happen if I tried to switch to another OTA channel, but I was simply going back to the same OTA channel that I was recording! There's no way that should have caused an end to the recording, since the OTA tuner was already on that channel!

After desperately trying to figure out a way to return without turning off the recorder, I finally selected "Yes" to stop recording because I wanted to watch the game live, but it made me mad that the 622 wouldn't let me browse to another satellite channel and return to the same OTA channel I was recording. I was in single mode, if that makes any difference. I suppose I could have hit the record button to start another recording, but I didn't want to do this every time I went back to the ESPN channel and end up with a bunch of little segments of the game on my hard drive, so I decided to just watch the game live and forget about trying to record it. Now I'm sorry, because it was a great game with a last-minute comeback finish, so it made me doubly mad that (apparently) the only way I could record the game in one piece was to never change the channel.

Does anybody know why I couldn't go back to the OTA channel I was recording? Is this a bug in the receiver? Was there some way for me to get back to the channel without stopping the recorder?

In the situation you describe the 622 is recording 006-01 per your instructions PLUS it is recording the same thing per normal viewing temporary record, when it ask you to stop the recording it is refering to the temporary recording it makes with viewing not the record one you set up so if you agree to "stop" the recording it will switch to view 006-01 and still be recording the program on 006-01. Try it some time.

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kb7oeb

· #7 · Dec 30, 2006

Shouldn't the live buffer been recording ESPN not the ota? I think you might be able to punch the channel number in directly to go back.

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harsh

· #8 · Dec 31, 2006

kb7oeb said:
Shouldn't the live buffer been recording ESPN not the ota? I think you might be able to punch the channel number in directly to go back.

It doesn't buffer what it is recording. Changing the channel to the OTA channel would try to open up a second instance of OTA (regardless of the channel) and that won't work. You must view the OTA stuff that is recording via the DVR menu.

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Richard Winfeld

Discussion Starter · #9 · Dec 31, 2006

To me that's just bad software. The receiver doesn't realize I'm going back to the channel I'm recording, so it assumes it has to stop recording? That's retarded.

Also:
1. I was in single mode, which I stated in my original post, although I don't see why that would matter, since even in dual mode I would still have 1 OTA tuner and 1 satellite tuner allocated to TV1, right?

2. I did select to stop the recording in order to go back to 006-01, and it didn't only stop recording the "temporary", it stopped recording my timer recording, which I thought I made clear.

I tried the "recall" button first, I tried entering "6", and I even tried going there from the EPG, but nothing worked - I got the warning that it would stop recording every time. I didn't think of going into the DVR to try and get back to channel 6 until later last night. I will know to try it next time, thanks.

But it's still retarded...

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ssmith10pn

· #10 · Dec 31, 2006

Since your in single mode just hit the PIP and then Swap. That way you will never disturb the first program.

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Ron Barry

· #11 · Dec 31, 2006

You don't even have to do a PIP and Swap.. just a PIP swap will get you over to the other tuner.

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SaltiDawg

· #12 · Dec 31, 2006

Richard Winfeld said:
...

Also:
1. I was in single mode, which I stated in my original post, although I don't see why that would matter, since even in dual mode I would still have 1 OTA tuner and 1 satellite tuner allocated to TV1, right?

2. I did select to stop the recording in order to go back to 006-01, and it didn't only stop recording the "temporary", it stopped recording my timer recording, which I thought I made clear.
...

But it's still retarded...

Me thinks it is not the 622.

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